Albany, Oregon

Wisconsin GOP vs William Cronon

Marci Sischo, Webmaster | William Cronon’s been in the news quite a bit the last couple of days because he’s just become the target of a Freedom of Information Act request tendered by the Wisconsin GOP. Why? Well, he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, which he followed up with a very informative inaugural blog post at his new blog. The blog post, in particular, seems to have gotten Republican panties in a bit of a twist, as it delves deep into the history of a little-known organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Of ALEC, Cronon writes, “The most important group, I’m pretty sure, is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which was founded in 1973 by Henry Hyde, Lou Barnett, and (surprise, surprise) Paul Weyrich. Its goal for the past forty years has been to draft “model bills” that conservative legislators can introduce in the 50 states. Its website claims that in each legislative cycle, its members introduce 1000 pieces of legislation based on its work, and claims that roughly 18% of these bills are enacted into law. (Among them was the controversial 2010 anti-immigrant law in Arizona.)”

Cronon did some fairly thorough research on ALEC, which led him to ask some pointed questions of Wisconsin Republicans, like, how many members of the Wisconsin GOP belong to ALEC? Because you have to be a sitting Republican representative or senator to join (or pay a few grand if you’re a private citizen), and you can’t view the majority of their website or their membership rolls without being a member. This is important because closed Republican meetings with ALEC might otherwise violate Wisconsin’s open meeting laws were it not for special loophole legislation in that law. So, while being a member of ALEC and having closed meetings as an ALEC member isn’t technically illegal, it sure seems pretty shady and contrary to the idea of an open government. Regardless of that, the whole blog post raises more than a few questions about ALEC, a group which has done quite well at staying under the radar and apparently very well at getting some unpleasant legislation passed.

(For the record, Cronon is remarkably fair in his treatment of ALEC and the GOP and as unbiased as you could reasonably ask someone to be. The post is a good read, and well worth a moment or two to check out.)

That doesn’t explain why Cronon got FOIA‘d, though. Hundreds of good, informative blog posts get published every hour, and none of them are getting FOIA’d by state Republicans. In fact, you can’t issue an FOIA against most bloggers, because they’re protected by the same laws that protect private citizens, and in many cases, by the shield laws that protect most journalists.

This is where it gets a bit sticky. Cronon is an employee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a state run college, and he used his university email account to conduct some of the research for his blog post. Technically, this makes him a state employee, using a state email account. So, since he’s, in the most nit-picky, technical sense, a state employee using a state email account, he’s open to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Up until now, that’s a circumstance that’s been treated with the same regard as any citizen using a private email account. Your average state university professor hasn’t had to worry about his university email being the subject of an FOIA because even though that professor is technically a state employee, professors in universities have enjoyed a little thing called “academic freedom:”

Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts (including those that are inconvenient to external political groups or to authorities) without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.

We are making this request under Chapter 19.32 of the Wisconsin state statutes, through the Open Records law. Specifically, we would like to cite the following section of Wis. Stat. 19.32 (2) that defines a public record as “anything recorded or preserved that has been created or is being kept by the agency. This includes tapes, films, charts, photographs, computer printouts, etc.”

Thank you for your prompt attention, and please make us aware of any costs in advance of preparation of this request.

Sincerely,

Stephan Thompson

Republican Party of Wisconsin

The search terms they’re looking for include the names of the senators currently facing recall attempts in Wisconsin. Along with search terms like “rally,” “recall,” “union,” etc, what it appears the GOP is looking for here is proof that William Cronon is helping to organize recall attempts against these senators with his state email account, because that would be illegal in Wisconsin. At least, that’s what Cronon thinks is going on, and he makes a good case for it in a lengthy blog post.

The FOIA request is completely legal, and if Cronon was organizing recall attempts via his university email, that would be an embarrassing violation of his university’s rules. This is, technically, the sort of thing the FOIA was intended to help people find out. The problem here is that, in context, it seems apparent that this is less about exposing a supposed violation, and more about an attempt by the Wisconsin GOP to intimidate an intelligent and highly-regarded political opponent.

Of this FOIA request, Cronon writes, “My most important observation is that I find it simply outrageous that the Wisconsin Republican Party would seek to employ the state’s Open Records Law for the nakedly political purpose of trying to embarrass, harass, or silence a university professor (and a citizen) who has asked legitimate questions and identified potentially legitimate criticisms concerning the influence of a national organization on state legislative activity. I’m offended by this not just because it’s yet another abuse of law and procedure that has seemingly become standard operating procedure for the state’s Republican Party under Governor Walker, but because it’s such an obvious assault on academic freedom at a great research university that helped invent the concept of academic freedom way back in 1894.”

This is all technically legal. It follows the letter of the law perfectly. It’s using the law to intimidate a political opponent into silence, but it’s legal. The question is, is it right?

After watching her parents murdered by a mugger in a back alley, Marci Sischo grew up vowing to become the world's greatest detec -- wait, that's Batman.

Theorizing that one could time travel within her own lifetime, Marci Sischo stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished -- no, no. That's Dr. Sam Beckett. Drat.

Marci Sischo grew up in northern Michigan, and moved to Oregon in 2009. Yes! She's the Commuter's webmaster, pursuing a journalism degree at LBCC, and in her dwindling spare time, she's co-authoring an urban fantasy novel. Stalk Marci at MarciSischo.com.